Sarah Joy Albrecht

“The Pipe gives the wise man time to think and the fool something to stick in his mouth.” – C.S. Lewis

This is a birthday present I painted for my friend Scott. He liked it. The depiction of Lewis is based on this photo I found on the Internets.

I just might have to paint a series, as it turns out that many famous people have expressed their opinions on pipes.

(Here’s one Scott quoted today: “On land, on sea, at home, abroad, I puff my pipe and think of God.” – J.S. Bach )

It’s been a while since I’ve painted anything and I really enjoyed picking up a brush.

I used to paint watercolors for my mom when I was a kid and she’d calligraphy Bible verses over them. One of my favorites was a of muddy grayish red blob. It may have even been an unintentional painting… birthed out of mixing colors together on a sheet of paper and the addition of way too much water, to the point where the paper threatened to tear if moved. After it dried, in ornate lettering, mom wrote Genesis 1:2, “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”

Suddenly the scribbles were beautiful; redeemed.

“Thomas, what’s your worst nightmare?”
“Leah’s face.”
“What’s your worst nightmare that’s NOT my face?”
“You.”
“Yeah I am, and I’m going to paint a vampire stand-up cardboard thing and put it in your room when you’re sleeping!”

“If you find yourself in the physiological frenzy called ‘flooding’ – racing heart, sweaty palms – stop the argument. Stress hormones inhibit higher cognitive functions, like impulse control and attention. When we feel threatened, we can’t take in new information. In the lab and in therapy sessions, when people take a break, go back to their baseline heart rate and start the conversation again, it’s like they’ve had a brain transplant. Starting a conversation gently is the key to ending it well. ” – John Gottman, Ph.D, co-founder of the Gottman Relationship Institute, as quoted in the January, 2013, issue of Real Simple magazine.

My comment: Yep!